Mark Darcy’s BACK: Firth talks about being a heart-throb as he returns in Bridget Jones

COLIN FIRTH can look serious and intense.

His face easily masks his feelings. He wears the look of an English gentleman from the 1930s. But behind the stolid facade is an easy sense of humour. Firth, 55, points to his most famous role as Mr Darcy in the BBC TV version of Pride & Prejudice in 1995 as the reason he is often thought of as uptight. But he insists that the joke is on others. “I am an actor,” he says.

“This business is built on us being prepared to make fools of ourselves. If you look at the parts I have played over the years there have been some very odd moments. “I certainly don’t hate Mr Darcy though or resent him,” he says. “He gave me recognition and I will always be very grateful.”

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Joking about his heart-throb status, he adds: “It takes the hair and make-up department about an hour and a half to make me look younger these days. Even then I often look like I’m in a really bad episode of The Persuaders. The most important part of it all is the ability to laugh and never take yourself too seriously.

"Otherwise there are always those who will rightly remind you of where you started.” For Firth it was not at some posh school or university like many of today’s younger male stars. He was a comprehensive schoolboy at the all-boys Montgomery of Alamein in Winchester, Hampshire.

He had arrived after his own parents – history teacher David and mother Shirley – had moved the family around as they took a variety of jobs from Chelmsford in Essex to St Louis, Missouri. “I’ve been lucky enough to never have been out of work from the day I left drama school,” he reflects. “I’ve been stuck from time to time because I have not been able to find anything good.

“I was looking to find a way through the maze of how to work and deal with everything. I was never really a high flyer, which is why I have certain teachers to thank for pointing me in the right direction and making things achievable. I was not crazy at being in an all-boys’ school. But as someone who was educated in the state sector I am a big supporter of it.

"I had some great teachers who deserve all the praise they get.” He singles out English teachers Angela Kirby and Stanley Payne. He also recalls Norman Peate, a music teacher, plus teacher Arthur Newton, who helped him make a go of things. “We never appreciate our teachers enough at the time,” he says.

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Firth met Livia when they worked together on a BBC dramatisation of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo

“It is only later, on reflection, that you realise that if you are lucky enough to have some good teachers then miracles can happen. It could have all been so different. I remember getting three per cent for one chemistry exam. The teacher said he gave me two of those marks for writing my name correctly.

"So I think it was a safe bet I would not be following my parents into teaching. I admire what they have done. My own way of making a living is far less worthwhile, no question.” FIirth has had his moments of doubt about his career. One came after his romance with American actress Meg Tilly whom he met on the film Valmont in 1989.

He moved into her log cabin retreat in Canada where they had son William, now 25, and he concentrated more on carpentry than acting. He did not act, out of choice, for two years. “It was a case of waiting and looking for the right part,” he says. “There are times for us all when we just want to stop and stare and think for a while.”

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He met his Italian wife Livia, then a producer’s assistant, when they worked together in Columbia on a BBC dramatisation of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. They married on June 21, 1997, and have sons Luca, 15, and Matteo, 13. “Life is never easily packaged,” he says.

“There is a carelessness about the order of things. I started acting for the fun and the pleasure. And I still turn up to work to enjoy myself. Everything else is a bonus.”